McLaren announces technical restructure
Both McLaren drivers on track during the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix (Image: Getty Images)
McLaren has announced a restructuring of the team to try and get them back to the top of the field. The 2023 season is proving to be one of McLaren’s worst since 2017, with zero points scored in the first two races of the year.
The team has recently issued a statement claiming that they will have a design-office restructuring at their headquarters at Woking.
As a result of this announcement, McLaren has dropped James Key, their Technical Director, and has decided against having one Technical Director who oversees the entire operation but instead, a team of three specialised roles:
Peter Prodromou acquires the role of Aerodynamics Technical Director and will oversee the Aerodynamic area of the team.
David Sanchez returns to McLaren, after a decade spent at rival team Ferrari, and will become the Technical Director of Car Concept and Performance.
Neil Houldey will be promoted to the newly created role of Technical Director of Engineering and Design.
The trio will report directly to Team Principle, Andreas Stella.
Lando Norris (front) leading his McLaren teammate Oscar Piastri (Image: Getty Images)
McLaren has stated that the restructuring is not a reactive move but instead the result of months of evaluation of the technical team following their recent period of decline.
Having achieved a P3 in the constructors standings during the 2020 season, their highest finish in eight years, McLaren has declined towards fourth in 2021 and fifth in 2022. The team now finds themselves at the bottom but does have hopes that they can upgrade their car and fight back against their competitors.
F1 has found that although having scored zero points, McLaren has the sixth quickest car, which is not where the team from Woking was expecting.
This horrible start to the season was predicted by the team as during the production of the MCL60, the development direction was changed which resulted in current production being frozen and new plans being made. The first major upgrade will arrive in time for round four in Baku, Azerbaijan, with additional series of further packages coming throughout the season.
It has emerged that Stella has been doing a lot of work evaluating the team’s technical structure. Zak Brown, McLaren’s CEO declared: “It has been clear to me for some time that our technical development has not moved at a quick enough pace.”
Given the team's declining performance over the last few seasons, it’s clear that creating a new structure in the hopes of bringing the team back to the top was a natural pathway for Brown to pursue.
The team hopes to establish the new structure and for it to work effectively before a series of key infrastructure projects finish development - a new wind tunnel and a state-of-the-art simulator.
The new wind tunnel is currently being calibrated, a process that will take several months before any development work for the car can take place. McLaren hopes for the wind tunnel to become available by the summer of 2023 but because of the development process In Formula One, the wind tunnel would likely have no effect until late 2024 at the earliest.
This doesn’t mean that McLaren will not be competitive before that as the McLaren Technology Centre remains one of the finest Formula 1 facilities, as well as the team continuing to recruit numerous technical staff at various levels across the team. They will also continue working on the current package to get the most out of the car.
The team is already showing signs of progress as in Saudi Arabia, Oscar Piastri managed to get the car into Q3. In terms of pace, only Aston Martin and Mercedes were faster in the medium-speed turns and only Aston Martin was faster in the high-speed corners.
However, on the straights, they had no pace as data suggests that McLaren was two seconds behind the Red Bulls over one lap.
Stella remains positive that this season could be overturned for the team as the midfield is the closest it’s been in seasons.
McLaren find themselves at the bottom of the constructors standings (Image: Getty Images)
Stella says: “We see that the points are not very far in terms of pace. This year racing keeps being quite tight. This is an opportunity, but we only capitalise on this opportunity if we improve the car.”
The improvement that Aston Martin has made from last season to this season gives hope to McLaren and their fans. Aston Martin proved that big jumps are possible as they went from being the seventh-best car last season to now being the second-best car, almost being able to rival Red Bull.
Stella says: “The gaps between teams, apart from Red Bull, have shrunk down.
“So, if you make a jump, you can compete for good points.”
McLaren is hoping that Melbourne’s Albert Park will suit their car. They hope they can challenge for Q3 and good points. This would be ideal for Piastri who would ideally love to score his first points at his home Grand Prix.
That is the goal for McLaren in the short run but long term, Brown hopes that the significant changes to the team’s structure will set them back on a path toward the front of the grid.